Obama Adds Nancy Reagan To His Growing List Of Funeral Snubs

Presidency: President Obama chose to skip the funeral of former first lady Nancy Reagan, opting instead to keynote a Texas hipster festival. Given all the other funerals of leading conservatives and U.S. allies he's missed, the optics are not good.

Sure, it isn't traditional for a president to attend the funeral of a former first lady, and the president did pay verbal tribute to her, whose eight years in the White House restored the splendor, dignity and even glamour of the presidency, even as the work of her husband, President Reagan, ended the Cold War and ushered in a new era of prosperity. The first lady, who died Sunday in California, was a presence in her own right, and the dearest person to the heart of the greatest president of the 20th century.

Obama himself has spoken of the mark the Reagan presidency left on America and even of seeking to achieve the same kind of influence they did. So it would be a seemly gesture for him to go to the funeral anyway, joining first lady Michelle. Not going to happen. An Austin, Texas, tech and music festival called South by Southwest Interactive, or SXSW, is beckoning, and although the event had been already scheduled, there's no such thing as an event where the U.S. president wouldn't be welcomed whenever he arrives, perhaps after the funeral.

A lot of good could be done by going to this funeral to pay his last respects to the beloved former first lady. The president could remind the public that the office of presidency is more important than the partisan politics that surrounds it. He could also draw some goodwill from his political opponents among Republicans, given that he's a lame duck and still seeks to accomplish things in his last year. And he could erase the growing sense that he only goes to funerals where he can reap political hay.

To date, Obama has skipped some very significant funerals, often choosing to play golf or fundraise with political fat-cats instead. He passed on the funeral of America's top Cold War ally, Lady Margaret Thatcher, in 2013, sending only a low-level delegation ranking below that of the group he sent to the funeral of Venezuela's anti-American dictator, Hugo Chavez, the same year.

Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, the greatest Asian leader of the post-colonial era, and a lion-hearted U.S. ally, got about the same after he died in 2015, as did South Korea's former president Kim Young-sam and Georgia's Eduard Shevardnadze. Even rock-solid ally Israel's Ariel Sharon, who died in 2014, got only Vice President Joe Biden.

Domestically, Obama also gave the back of his hand to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a giant among his peers, skipping his funeral this year.

Even more painful, he's failed to show up for the funerals of important military men who lost their lives under his command. Maj. Gen. Harold Greene, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2014, got nothing more than a representative, while American Sniper Chris Kyle got absolutely nothing, not even a mention in the 2013 State of the Union address the same day.

But there were people he was willing to jet halfway around the world to honor at their funerals. One of them was South Africa's Nelson Mandela, an important figure to be sure, but not significant to U.S. interests. Instead of representing the U.S. state with dignity, President Obama chose to giggle for selfies with Denmark's leader and shake hands with Cuba's odious dictator Raul Castro.

He's also sent representation to the funerals of criminals in the name of political gain, honoring the likes of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, and Freddy Gray in Baltimore in 2015, both moves that were calculated to stoke racial unrest. Even his presence at the funeral of an honorable man, State Senator and Reverend Clementa Pinckney, who was killed in South Carolina church massacre in 2015, was a move to advance a narrative about white racism.

The president is the representative of all the American people as the head of state, not just those who share a political stripe or prove politically useful. No, he didn't have to attend the funeral of Nancy Reagan. But he should have.

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